House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) has been generally right about the war in Iraq from the beginning. Unlike many of his fellow Dems on the committee, for example, it was Reyes who opposed the original war resolution in 2002, saying the president hadn’t convinced him that Iraq was a threat or connected to 9/11.
With this in mind, it was an unpleasant surprise when Reyes joined John McCain and Joe Lieberman in calling for a troop escalation in Iraq last month. He told Newsweek that he supports an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias.”
That was in December. Yesterday, Reyes had a different perspective.
“We don’t have the capability to escalate even to this minimal level,” said U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, referring to the availability of troops. “The president has not changed direction, but is simply changing tactics.”
Reyes, who met with Bush on Tuesday to review the plan, said sending more troops removes any incentive the Iraqi government had to take responsibility for the safety of its own citizens. He added that Bush was continuing his “go-it-alone” approach, rather than trying to find diplomatic solutions. […]
In the Tuesday meeting, Reyes said, the president assured him that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had promised to supply soldiers in support of the effort and not to tolerate interference from militias, even those that support his Shiite majority in the government. Al-Maliki has failed to keep similar promises for past stability operations in Baghdad, Reyes said, which ultimately led to their failure.
“I asked them (Bush and other administration officials at the meeting), What if this isn’t successful? What are the benchmarks? Where is the accountability?” Reyes said. “There is none.”
Obviously it would have been preferable for Reyes to be right all along, but I’m delighted to see him come around.
What led Reyes to reverse course? I have no idea, but Matthew Yglesias suggested the Dem leadership may have gotten his attention.
Rich Lowry sees hypocrisy in Silvestre Reyes’ apparent flip-flop on the idea of sending more troops to Iraq. Maybe Reyes had a genuine change of heart after gathering more information.
Or maybe not. Either way, or especially in the latter case, this is what we call “party discipline” and the Democrats could use more of it — wayward members learning that they’d better think three or four times before defy the leadership position on key issues.
Maybe Pelosi straightened him out. Maybe Reyes talked to some experts who convinced him this approach is folly. Maybe Reyes sat down with the president and he realized, “This guy doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Whatever the reason, there are now no real Democrats in Congress supporting an escalation. That’s the way it needs to be.